AuthorTopic: Censorship in Uglies? (Read 3188 times)

Pedestrian

So after reading The Giver thread I started wondering...to what extent are books and stuff kept away from people in the Uglies series?If you've read The Giver, you might remember the part where the Giver was talking to Jonas about all the books in his library, and how no one else was allowed to read them.Censorship is a theme in a lot of dystopian works (ie; The Giver, obviously Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World), and common in totalitarian governments (ie; Nazi Germany, the USSR, Tally's city).

So. Here's what I know about Uglies:1. Uglies, at least, have a library 2. Children and teenagers are taught about Rusty history, but maybe only about all the ways that we messed up (not about Napoleon Bonaparte or the Bill of Rights or the United Nations, but only about pollution, racism, and the evils of war?)3. The Boss had a collection of old Rusties magazines which he died to save. This implies that this kind of literature is generally not available.

So my question is: do people in the Ugliesverse know about the actual events of history, and do they have access to literature (ie; Shakespeare, Twain, Hawthorne, Westerfeld , etc.)?

« Last Edit: April 25, 2010, 01:38:27 AM by Pedestrian »

Logged

Nina-Chan

ooh interestying, i suppose they might know a bit but basic stuff, like the war part in the french revolution, Columbus killing native americans, how antisocial the pharaohs in egypt were.you see what i mean

Pedestrian

ooh interestying, i suppose they might know a bit but basic stuff, like the war part in the french revolution, Columbus killing native americans, how antisocial the pharaohs in egypt were.you see what i mean

Yeah. That would be awful to learn history in a way so biased that you only see the bad stuff. So that you end up thinking that humanity is a terrible disease.Not that biased history classes have never happened before. There were so many good things about, to take your example, the French Revolution in how it changed the ideologies of the western world (even if it sort of failed). Only learning about how people died would be sad and kind of...point-missing. A lot of them died for something they believed in.

This has got me thinking now... does this already happen in today's society??

The only slight instance I can give is that after reading up on the causes for the first world war and where the first platoons were sent to, you realise that what you got taught in history wasn't even half the story... hell, it wasn't even half of the right story =/

And if something was censored out *completely*... we wouldn't even know about it =/

Nina-Chan

This has got me thinking now... does this already happen in today's society??

The only slight instance I can give is that after reading up on the causes for the first world war and where the first platoons were sent to, you realise that what you got taught in history wasn't even half the story... hell, it wasn't even half of the right story =/

And if something was censored out *completely*... we wouldn't even know about it =/

and on top of that there is propaganda... something that takes the facts that are already there and twists them to prove a point. And in tally's universe, there are many more forms of media, the ultimate weapon of mass instruction....

Pedestrian

Biased teaching of history has always happened. And it's not really intentional, it's just that the way that history is viewed changes depending on the era in which it is being studied.

For instance, directly after the Mexican-American War it was seen as a justified and inevitable racial conflict. Now, in an era where ideas of racial superiority and imperialism are looked down upon--and when we have documentation that proves President Polk intentionally provoked Mexican troops in order to start a war--it's viewed as an unnecessary conflict used to gain more land (what became Arizona, New Mexico, etc.)

It's not really a question of which is right. It's the same event viewed through the eyes of different generations with different political and cultural mindsets.

So Tally's generation obviously has a different mindset than the majority of the current generations, especially after a near-apocalypse (I forgot the word...catal...something), so naturally they'd have a different view on history than we do.

This is a really interesting topic... I just read through it and I agree with everyone... It's interesting how the made-up worlds in books are the things that really get you thinking about your own world... (did that make any sense? I'm not sure it did)Anyway...

Logged

Sorry I've been away from the forum for a while... I've been really busy...